Marianne Faithfull - A Life In Song

Marianne Faithfull is British pop royalty and in this honest, open and moving portrait, The South Bank Show uniquely tells her story through her songs including: Vagabond Ways, Why D’Ya Do It? and Ballard Of Lucy Jordon.

Marianne Faithful was born in Hampstead the daughter of a British spy and a Jewish Austro-Hungarian aristocrat. She first achieved fame in 1964 when Andrew Oldham famously spotted her at a London party. Just 17 years old and still attending convent school in Reading, he launched her recording career with As Tears Go By, the first song ever written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. She later became Mick Jagger’s girlfriend, gaining further notoriety when they were arrested in the now infamous Redlands country house drugs bust of 1967.

Marianne subsequently spiralled into heroin addiction for many years, and she even lived on a wall in Soho, but in 1979 made an incredible comeback with her album Broken English. She emerged as one of the UK’s most original female singer-songwriters, and since then she has performed worldwide, made further albums and acted in several movies and plays.

Melvyn Bragg meets her in Paris during her most recent concert tour; and the film explores the resilience of a woman who has survived a serious suicide attempt, years of drug abuse and more recently a breast cancer scare to become a celebrated and much loved British icon.

The film includes new archive footage of Marianne as a young woman.

Still leading the way, The Southbank Show is the first ITV1 programme to be available on the internet in both podcast (audio) and vodcast (video) format at ITV.com/southbank .

The Southbank Show, Sunday June 24, 10.45pm.